Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, my amendment pertains to the Inflation Reduction Act. In order to pay for what ended up being approximately $1.2 trillion in green subsidies, the Biden-Harris administration chose to raise the royalty rate on onshore oil and gas leases from 12.5 to 16.66 percent through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Progressive Democrats also voted in unison to quintuple the minimum bid amount from $2 an acre to $10 an acre. The minority voted to increase the rental rate by a factor of 9 from $1.50 to eventually $15 an acre. At the time of the bill passage, estimates indicated that the bill would impose a $6.5 billion hike on oil and gas development.

At a time when we need to get back to energy independence, when we need to fight inflation by lowering the price of fuel, we have to peel back these failed policies that hurt the economy and hurt the consumer.

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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, what I find to be one of the more remarkable things about the so-called Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is nowhere in that bill do progressive Democrats identify any government program worth cutting, not $1 of the $80 billion appropriated to the IRS to audit middle-income Americans, not $1 of spending in Ukraine, and not $1 of the billions given to advance tree equity.

This is absurd. We are spending ourselves into oblivion. We have to give relief to the American consumer, and a $6.5 billion hike in the cost of oil and gas to the consumer is real. The cost of groceries is up 30 to 40 percent. Rents are up. It is impossible for some to buy a home.

We have to recognize that the Biden-Harris administration is a failure. People were better off under Donald Trump than they are under Biden-Harris.

This is obvious. This isn't about pandering to oil and gas. This is about working-class Americans seeing increased prices at the fuel pump. Everything at the grocery store, everything at the big-box store, and everything at the mall is touched by oil and gas. If the price of that underlying commodity is increased, the price of everything else goes up. This is simple math.

We have to get back to common sense. Quite frankly, our enemies laugh. America produces the cleanest energy in the world. If we were really serious about climate change, we would export our natural gas to Europe because ours is better and cleaner than Russia's.

That is not my colleagues' objective. The minority's objective is about control, wealth distribution, and hurting the middle class. I, for one, stand for the middle class. I, for one, want to give relief to the middle class and quit pandering.

Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of this bill. We have the opportunity to get back to energy independence, and we have the opportunity to give relief to the middle-class consumer.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, the Environmental Financial Advisory Board, or EFAB, was chartered under the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act.

The EFAB boasts of making recommendations that would supposedly lower the cost of environmental protection. Unfortunately, they are entirely beholden to the left's climate alarmism agenda.

In a 2022 meeting, the EFAB spent taxpayer resources gloating about the establishment of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund created from the so-called Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a bill whose subsidies will cost the American taxpayer $1.2 trillion. The de facto slush fund provides $27 billion to the EPA through September 2024.

If the argument here is that we need the EFAB to expedite the rate at which we can give out green subsidies to his donor base, I admit to my colleagues that perhaps the EFAB has grown to be successful in that endeavor. Let's take a look at eligible recipients for this boondoggle: State-sponsored green banks, nonprofit or quasi-government green banks, nonprofit energy conservation funds, and nonprofit social impact funds.

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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chair, if we look at the EFAB's charter, you will find they provide recommendations on ways the EPA can implement funding from the infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act to support environmental justice and to tackle the climate crisis. The charter goes on to say that the EFAB is focused on decarbonizing our Nation's schoolbuses.

Let's put aside whether it is even the role and scope of the Federal Government to address environmental justice or to work to decarbonize schoolbuses.

The EFAB is singularly focused on weaponizing the power of the Federal Government to distort market incentives and transform the economy, all in the name of promoting what has been rightly characterized as climate alarmism.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chair, my amendment prohibits funds to be used by the Environmental Protection Agency for the U.S. Global Change Research Program. I know that is a mouthful, but this program coordinates with 13 different Federal departments and agencies. Its focus, as it relates to the areas within the EPA's jurisdiction, is to conduct research on climate change.

I think it is fair to say that the climate is changing, and perhaps we have a role to play in it. However, there is a degree of climate alarmism in this country that has compelled smooth-talking bureaucrats and their grant-seeking associates in the private sector to grovel for more and more and more funding, lest the world end in 8 years is kind of the mantra.

Mr. Chair, we have got to stop giving these handouts for alarmism. We have got to get back to simple metrics. We have got to have things that are truly measurable and not subjective. I do believe Al Gore predicted the end of the world by now. Guess what? We are humming along just fine.

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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chair, the alarmism that is coming from the progressive Democrats ignores the fact that you have more and more individuals moving into coastal areas where hurricanes have an impact. You have more and more people and individuals moving into tornado alley or into Nashville where we have tornadic activity on a regular basis.

Some of this is common sense. It is not that the climate is somehow attacking us, maybe we are just moving in the way of the climate because you have denser populations in areas that are affected by weather.

Michael Shellenberger, a leading environmentalist, points out that economic development and technological advances are important factors that the left tends to exclude in its analysis on climate change.

Mr. Chairman, we have to get back to the metrics, get back to common sense, and recognize that if we get out of the way of industry, they want to advance. They want to be more efficient. They want to produce a profit margin, but also a savings for their consumer.

There is competition between industry to be more green, to be more environmentally friendly, and you see that playing out all over our Nation. You don't have to have the Federal Government putting industry in a choke hold and strangling innovation, and ultimately at a time when the middle class is struggling, strangling the middle class.

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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, this is, again, a commonsense policy at a time where the Biden-Harris administration has failed our country. Our southern border is wide open. We have little girls being raped by illegals. I have a family in critical condition because a drunk illegal hit them head-on. Fentanyl is killing 300,000 people. We have a crisis, and they want to talk about the climate.

Our inner cities are desperate. Mayors in Dallas, Chicago, and New York are crying for help, and the Biden-Harris administration is silent. They are too busy pushing their alarmist, progressive, woke agenda on the middle class.

The Biden-Harris policies have failed our country, they failed hardworking Americans, and this is a commonsense policy to inject common sense into the Federal Government.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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